The Lonely Coroner's Christmas
by TraceZBullet
Summary: Al Robbins doesn't want to go home for the holidays. He'd much rather stay at work with a certain coworker in a reindeer shirt. Doc Robbins Grissom. Don't flame, people, it's a joke.


**A/N: This is dedicated to all you freaks…I mean friends at the D-rob/ Gilly Boy Club at Apparently I've been designated the "serious" writer for the "ship" if you can call it one. :P This is totally weird and hard to write, I'll have you know, but I hope it gives a few laughs…I mean tears because this was supposed to be serious… **

**So, without further ado, I give you a story whose characters belong solely to CBS and its affiliates and not me. If you need to sue, just contact me at dev's email at wuahaha. com**

**"Have a Lonely Christmas"**

_Have a holly, jolly Christmas…_ came the croon of a jazz singer over the radio. The sound echoed around the icy walls of the morgue. Al was alone; it was just him and cooling flesh. In an hour, he'd go home to a tired unloving wife and in three days, they'd celebrate a tired, unloving Christmas. No work for a week, a Christmas bonus, and an empty heart. _Happy holidays_.

Tired lines streaked his face, covered in sparse tufts of whitening hair. One scratchy cheek rested on his hand as he stared at the paper before him. More paperwork. His vision blurred as he struggled to make sense of the words and the blanks he was supposed to be filling in. His mind was elsewhere; he couldn't concentrate.

All he could think of was a spectacled man, smiling and singing.

The whoosh of the swinging door startled the doctor into looking up so quickly that his neck throbbed in protest. "Hello, Doc," the other man said, voice warm, smooth, energized.

For a second, Al Robbins couldn't speak. He felt the telltale quickening of his pulse, the urge to smile and to blush just from looking at his colleague. Finally, he said quietly, "Hi Gil. You look good." It was said, he hoped, in the most nonchalant and friendly way. But it was true. Gil Grissom wore a green button-up shirt with reindeer at the collar: a detail that amused Al greatly. The cave-like walls of the morgue pressed in around them and the scents of bodily fluids and preservatives mingled in the air.

"I am feeling great," the other man admitted, barely repressing a big grin. Al, of course, knew what that smile was from. That horrible brunette had put it there last night, no doubt. Robbins' face fell for he knew he would never hold her place in the other man's life. Grissom, detecting this change quickly, said, "What's wrong?"

He had no idea.

"Nothing." How did you tell a man he had broken a marriage and another man's heart without lifting a finger? The answer was you don't. Al knew he was wasting his time but his feelings weren't that easy to end. They didn't have an off switch. How much easier that would be: to stop caring. David and the others he had snapped at in his frustration in the past weeks would certainly be all the better if such a switch existed.

The other man's kind blue eyes were filled with worry and, possibly, pity. _That's the last thing I want to see there,_ Al thought bitterly. Shrugging, Grissom turned away and out of pure habit, he began making coffee. The coffee steamed as it tricked into the waiting mug and Al scratched out the last box on the slip of paper.

He breathed a sigh of relief. "It's going to be nice to have a rest," he noted. Grissom answered with only a smile, one that made Al's stomach turn over. It was just a damn smile. He tried to convince himself a smile meant nothing, absolutely nothing.

"I'm not sure how restful mine will be," Gil remarked wryly. "It's hard to keep up with someone young like she is." Al's blood ran cold.

The hot mug shook slightly in the doctor's grip on its way to his lips. "Oh?" he asked disinterestedly. _Please don't tell me about her. I don't want to know. _

A silence followed, broken only by the quiet whirr of the ventilation. They both hurriedly sucked the cooling coffee. Al tried not to stare openly but through subtle glances. If this was all he was going to get for a week, he'd take it.

"Great shirt," the coroner said finally, hauling himself to his feet, resting on two sturdy crutches. He wondered how it would feel to take the shirt off him. The shock of their blue eyes meeting, did Gil feel it too?

If so, he said nothing about it. "You like the shirt? Got it from—" Grissom stopped himself though from the coroner's pained look or for a different reason it was impossible to tell.

Neither of them had anything else to say. Without a word, he left the mug on the counter.

"Have a good Christmas, Al," Grissom said and gave a wave over his shoulder. The door hissed shut behind him and he was gone, as if he had never arrived. Al sighed in hopeless longing.

_If I wrote a letter, would Santa bring you to me?_


End file.
